As many of you know, I travel all over the Western provinces of Canada and during the course of my travels, I notice trends and projects and so forth that our dealer network gets involved in. Some time back I noticed that Hoopsisters designs were appearing in quite a number of our dealer’s stores: being sold as design CD’s as well as being done as embroida block of the month, class projects etc.

The design CD’s are multi-formatted so are suitable for most embroidery machines. The concept behind these designs is to embroider a quilt block ENTIRELY in the hoop so that piecing, applique(?); quilting – everything is done by the embroidery machine. All that remains after each block is un-hooped, is to trim it and sew them togther using a technique the Hoopsisters outline in their instructions. This type of quilt-as-you-go concept is not new but the Hoopsisters do seem to have taken it to another level.

We do not endorse any third party company on this Janome blog but I thought I would post a quick message with a pic of the wall quilt that I recently completed. The design CD used was BOWGELLO – due to the quilting design across blocks: a bow design. The piecing is, of course, bargello – style though it was done completely differently to traditional bargello. If you want to take a peek at that, you should go no further than our own home-grown BC resident Eileen Wright who has a book published by Martingale Publishers called Twist & Turn Bargello Quilts. You might have to scroll around on this website link to find the book but I’m sure its there. Most local dealers and quilt stores would be able to order it for you too. Our dealer Snip & Stitch, in Nanaimo BC currently has copies of this book (when I was there a few months ago, Eileen was even signing books for folks who purchased them – so there’s a bonus for you if you head that way!!)

I used the Janome MC11000 to embroidery this quilt and used the SQUARE 8 inch hoop throughout. I followed the instructions carefully and, even so, found that not all my blocks fitted together as well as I would have liked. I ended up “fudging” it and just sewed the blocks together as best I could. I did not like the reverse side of the quilt which was to be bound along all the joins with strips of fabric. I omitted this and, of course, the back looked like a dog’s breakfast. One of my quilting buddies did hers with totally different colours and did use the strips to cover joins and the back of her quilt looks quite pretty. I have used this technique of strip- covering-the-joins before, but this time, I figured I would prefer to just slap a backing across the whole of the back of the quilt and then stitch in the ditch from the front to secure the layers. If I had known ahead of time that I would do this, I would have eliminated the backing fabric on the back of each hooping. That was quite a lot of fabric that I wasted. However, hindsight is easy and I will know for next time.

Perhaps you’d like to try making a quilt using this technique??

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About lizafrica

I am the National Education Manager for Janome & Elna Canada (including Artistic Creative products) and I LOVE to sew! I have been employed full time in the sewing and quilting industry for almost 30 years so I bring a wealth of sewing knowledge & expertise to this blog. I enjoy all forms of sewing from quilting to sewing garments to machine embroidery and software. Pretty much everything in my life is seen through the eyes of a passionate sewer! I am constantly on the look out for fun, innovative and inspiring ideas to share with you all on this blog.
I also love to read, knit , travel and spend time with my family and friends.

4 Responses to HOOPSISTERS

Hi Liz, I am about to embark on the infinity quilt and noticed in the book a suggestion to have an additional hoop so you can get another design hooped and ready, I have been searching online for hoop sq and st for the 11000 and cannot find a place to buy extra hoops. Can you advise where to buy these.

Hi Susan,
Additional hoops for your Janome MC11000 are only available from our authorized Janome dealers. Check out the Dealer listing (FIND A DEALER in top right hand corner of the home page of our website: http://www.janome.ca.)
Good luck with that Infinity Quilt. It is very beautiful. I managed to complete 2: one white and one cream though I did smaller versions than the queen size in the book. I also have a UFO in cream which is about 3/4 embroidered. I have it in a project box at home to one day complete. Maybe 2012 will be the year????

Hi,
I like your hoopster design quilt very much! I wanted to click the like button but I was required to ‘sign in’ to wordpress? Anyway, I liked your style of writing and I wondered if I could ask your advice? My husband recently bought me a janome 11000 machine second hand. I was and I still am, very daunted since for years I have been an avid patchworker and quilter using a very old, very basic singer! I have just finished piecing a star sampler quilt top using my new 11000, and I now need to quilt! I want to free motion quilt the borders within the quilt but I cannot figure out how to lower the feed dogs! Sorry to sound so dim, but I am a little dim with computerised technology. I’m also a little disapointed that I cannot download embroidery designs from janome for my machine?
Oh, and congratulations on becoming a grandmother! All those beautiful baby quilts and wall hangings for the nursery you can make.
Hopefully I will hear back from you soon?
Yours kindly
Justine

First of all, my apologies for the delay in replying to you. I began my super-busy Janome and Elna travel season a few weeks back and have barely been in the office since then. When I am on the road, I work quite long hours and have limited access to the internet.
But here goes now: Congratulations on your MC11000 – you are a lucky lady. Once you have “made friends” with your machine and are familiar with how it works, you will REALLY love it!
The feed dogs drop is on the screen of the machine – there is no little lever on the side of the machine. Simply follow the directions in your MC 11000 Instruction manual or touch the screen icon for the feed dogs. You will hear a whirring sound and the feed dogs will have dropped and the recommended foot to be used: the free motion foot will then be shown on the screen as well.
I realize you purchased your machine second hand but there is also an Instructional DVD that you may watch on your computer for more information on how to use your machine. We pack this together with the printed instruction manual with all our new MC11000 machines.
Enjoy your new Janome machine!
Liz

I do believe there might be some free designs on the http://www.janome.com website. However, there are literally 1000’s of designs that are free on the internet which you can download for your embrodiery machine. Please just ensure that you download them in the .jef format which is the format your MC11000 will read. Other formats can, of course, be used but you would first have to convert the format to jef using an embroidery software package like or Janome Digitizer. Many free design downloads will offer various formats – .jef is quite common.
You may also purchase many designs one by one on the internet or Design CD’s may be purchased almost anywhere Janome embroidery machines are sold. Most design CD’s are multi-formatted so you would need to just check jef is amongst the list on the package – I would be most surprized if it is not!